Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (76 page)

“It’s lucky,” she said, putting it into a pocket on the front of her jean dress.

“I hope so.  We could all use some luck.”  Although Alec knew they had been really lucky so far.

As Corey’s girls walked out of the woods, Alec realized their luck had probably gone.  One of the twins did not look well at all.  She was very pale and had a slight shine to her skin.  Her sister was clearly very worried, and Kelly quickly gathered them up into the truck.  Alec looked at Corey who just looked back.  They spoke no words but had a mutual understanding.  Corey wasn’t going to do anything about it.  He didn’t believe his little girl could be infected.  If Alec didn’t like it, he was welcome to get out of the truck now.

Alec didn’t move, and so Corey climbed up into the cab.  They pulled off the shoulder as Danny lifted the tailgate back up.  Alec decided he didn’t want to ride with Corey anymore.  One car crash was enough.  First though, he wanted to think awhile, see if he could figure out something better than walking.  Or, in his case, rolling.  The sun was setting, and soon it would be dark.  Both he and the kids were tired.  They were unlikely to get very far before they would need to stop for the night.  He took out the GPS in his pocket.  When he turned it on, it brought up a screen that showed their route.  Unfortunately, the only man-made things it showed were roads.  He reached up and knocked on the cab’s rear window.  Kelly slid it open a crack.

“Do you have a map I could barrow?” Alec had to speak loudly.

He watched as Kelly spoke to Corey about something.  They spoke too quietly for him to hear over the wind, and he had never learned how to read lips.  In the end though, it didn’t matter what they said.  Kelly opened the glove box and took out a pile of paper.  She sifted through it until she found a map book and handed it out through the little gap of a window.  She then quickly closed it before Alec could even say thank you.  Their hospitality was deteriorating with the little girl’s health.

He settled back into his original sitting position and looked through the book.  It had maps of places all over Ontario.  Alec opened it up to the Leighton page first.  It didn’t take him long to discover that they had already passed the edge of that page.  This was a good sign.  He flipped through the book and figured out where they were.  The wind kept trying to tear it away from him so he kept a tight grip.

At first glance, things didn’t look so good, as there was nothing between where they were and where they were going.  Alec looked closer though, searching for places just off the highway that they would be able to walk to.  Finally he found it.  About an hour’s drive ahead, there was an exit off the highway.  Not far from that exit was a service station.  They could hold up there for the night, and there might even be better buildings near it that weren’t marked on the map.  It wasn’t labelled as a town either, so it should have a small population, if any.  If they ran into any people there, they were likely to be uninfected.

He sat up and knocked on the truck’s window again.  Once again, it slid open a tiny amount.

“We’re here,” Alec told Kelly, holding up the map and pointing to it.  “Could you pull over and let us out when we get to here?”

Alec slid the map book through the window.  Kelly took it and looked it over.  She then looked back at Alec and nodded.  Alec gave her a thumbs up, and she shut the window again.  Before settling back down, he looked in at the two little girls.  One appeared to be asleep in her mother’s lap.  The other held the first one’s hand and just sat there, staring at her.  The one sitting up was clearly concerned for the one lying down.

Alec settled down again.  He had once met a twin, a woman, in a bar.  Actually, most of the people he met were women in bars.  Which then became women in bras.  Then women without bras.  That wasn’t why he thought of this one now, though.  He thought of the conversation they had had.  The woman had told him about what it was like being an identical twin.  About mistaken identity, about falling for the same boy, about arguing over who got to wear what on what day so that they didn’t look completely the same.  One thing she mentioned though was this connection they had.  She said she always knew how her sister was feeling if they were in the same room.  Even if they were far apart, she could feel the most extreme of emotions.  Her sister was the same way with her.  If one of them had a bad break-up, the other would call out of the blue.  When she had been in a skiing accident and broke her leg, her sister knew right away that something bad had happened.  When her sister was proposed to, she called immediately, knowing that there was going to be good news.

The little girls in the front of the car would likely be the same way.  The amount of concern the one had for the other made Alec even more concerned.  He hoped that Corey would drive way over the speed limit and get them there in under the hour he estimated it would take.

* * *

Alec reached into his pocket and took out his pistol.  He looked it over and decided he should probably replace the shots he had fired off earlier in the day.

“Hey, Danny, could you drag my pack over here to where I can reach it?”  Alec pointed to his sack.

“Sure.”  Danny had been sitting next to the tailgate just staring off into space.  He crawled toward the front of the truck and shoved Alec’s bag over to him.

“Thanks, kid.”  Alec opened part of his bag and went straight to where he had packed his pistol’s extra rounds.

He slid the magazine out of the handle and checked how many rounds he would need to put in.  He had fired off four rounds already.  He remembered that one of those rounds had gone into the head of his friend, Michelle.  At least it had been quick.

“Can I do it?” Danny asked, looking at the mag.

Alec thought for a moment.  “Sure, why not.  You should probably learn anyway.”

“I know how to do it, I’ve just never done it,” Danny told him.

“Well, you can’t really know something until you’ve done it yourself.  Here.”  Alec handed Danny the magazine and the four bullets to put into it.

He watched Danny figure out how to put in the bullets without comment.  If he had seen him do something wrong, he would have told him, but Danny got it right.  He handed it back to Alec, who slapped it back into his pistol and pocketed the gun.

“Do you know how to clean a gun?” Alec asked.

“Well, if you don’t really know unless you do it, then no, I don’t,” Danny answered.

“Maybe once we stop for the night I’ll show you,” Alec offered.  “It’s a little more complex than putting bullets into a magazine.  Where did you learn that anyway?  Your brother?”

“No, internet.  Where are we going to stop?” Danny wondered.  “I saw you looking at a map earlier.”

“Not too far off the highway is a service station.”  Alec took out his GPS and showed the spot to Danny.  “I figure we can probably barricade ourselves in it for the night.”

“Are you going to teach Alice anything about guns?” Danny asked, seemingly out of the blue.

Alec looked over at the little girl.  He didn’t even know how old she was.  Or how old Danny was, for that matter.  She was currently kneeling, resting her arms on the side of the truck bed.  She had stuck her head past the side like a dog out of a car window.  The wind whipped her hair in all directions.

“I don’t know,” Alec shook his head.  “Certainly not tonight if I can avoid it.”

“What’s the future going to be?”  That was a heavy question.

“I know even less about that,” Alec sighed.

“Are we just going to start living with you?” Danny kept asking.

“I don’t know,” Alec let a little bit of irritation creep into his voice hoping it would get him to stop.  “Maybe.  I still don’t really know what’s going on, or what this virus deal is about.  This could be over by tomorrow, or several years from now.  It might never go away.”

Alec should have held off on that last part, but it slipped out.  Danny’s face subtly changed. 
Clearly, he hadn’t thought about that yet.  He assumed there would be an end, that order would be restored.  Alec had thought that too, up until they fled the city and saw all those other cars, all those other people.

“How old are you?”  Alec decided to use his recent thought to change the subject.

“Fourteen,” Danny muttered.

Alec nodded.  “Do you know how old Alice is?”

“No.”

“Hey, Alice.”  Alec put a hand on her back to get her attention.

She turned around with a big, bright smile on her face.  Alec couldn’t help but feel slightly better.  He hoped her smile worked as well on Danny.

“How old are you, kiddo?” Alec asked.

“I’m five and one half.”  Alice held up five fingers, three on one hand and two on the other.

“Do you know anything about guns, Alice?” Alec was going to have to teach her gun safety, at the very least.

“I know that my Daddy has to carry one for work, and that it’s very dangerous,” Alice said matter-of-factly.  “I’m not ever supposed to touch one, and if someone has one, I have to do what they say.”

“Very good.”  Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her.

“You have a gun,” Alice said.  “I saw it when we met.”

“I do,” Alec nodded.  “It’s to keep us safe from the bad people that want to hurt us.”

“Why do they want to hurt us?” Alice huffed.  “They’re mean.”

“Actually, they are very, very sick,” Alec told the five-year-old.  He tried to find words that she would understand.  “Have you ever had the flu?”

Alice nodded.  “It was icky, and I threw up.”

“Right, and you didn’t have a choice about throwing up, did you?”

Alice shook her head.

“Well, these people, they’re sick like that.  They wouldn’t hurt us if they weren’t sick, but because they are, they can’t help it.”

“Can we give them medicine?” Alice wondered.  “My Daddy gave me medicine that tasted yucky.”

“There is no medicine that can help them.”  At least as far as Alec knew.

“Will they get better?”

“I don’t know.  They might not.”

Alice looked down at her hands and pondered this.  “Kara said their souls were torn in two, and that the only way to help them was to kill them.  That would put their souls back together in heaven.”  She didn’t ask any more questions.

Alec wasn’t going to say anything to that.  He couldn’t.  Instead, he leaned his head back and stuck his own hands into his pockets.  One of them touched his pistol, which was expected, but the other pocket had something in it as well.  He pulled out some dog treats that he had forgotten he had on him for Rifle.  He put all of them back but one.

“Here Shoes.”  Alec held the biscuit out to the hound.

Shoes got up from where he was lying and waddled his way over.  When the dog saw what Alec held, he opened his mouth as if expecting him
just to place it in there.

“He has to do a trick first.”  Alice stopped Alec from just giving him the treat.  “Shoes, sit.”

The dog sat, then opened his mouth again.

“Shoes, shake a paw.”  Alice held out her hand to the dog.

Shoes lifted one of his short little legs up.

Alice took it in her hand and shook his leg.  “Other paw.”

Shoes lifted the other leg up.

Alice repeated the shaking gesture.  “Down.”  She held out her little hand, palm spread and gestured to the dog that he should lay down.

Shoes lay down.

“Up.”  She turned her hand over and reversed the gesture.

Shoes sat back up.  He continued to open his mouth, waiting for his treat after every trick.

“One more, you silly boy.”  Alice patted his head.  “Signal.”

Shoes lay down and started chuffing.

“Good boy!”  Alice patted her dog.  She took the treat from Alec and gave it to Shoes.

“I think for all that he deserves an extra treat.”  Alec took another biscuit from his pocket.

Shoes sat up next to him, mouth hanging open and slowly leaning toward the biscuit.

“Shoes, wait,” Alice commanded.

Shoes closed his mouth, but continued to stare at the treat, his nostrils wiggling as he sniffed it.

“Now you say ‘Okay’ when you give him the treat,” Alice told Alec.

Alec held the treat right in front of Shoes’s face, but the dog continued to wait as it was told.

“Okay.”  Alec didn’t make him wait long.

Shoes gobbled up the treat in
an instant, then waddled off toward the rear of the truck bed before they could command any more tricks out of him.

“He’s a very well-trained dog,” Alec commented.  “What was that signal command you gave him?”

“He used to work for the police with my Daddy,” Alice told him.  “He would find
cadavers
.  Lying down and barking was his signal for when he found or smelled one.”

“Really?”  Alec looked at the hound.  That could prove to be a very useful trick to have.

“Yup, he’s found lots of people,” Alice nodded.  “He got old though, and had to retire.  That means he gets to stay home with me!”

Alec looked at the pooch.  He remembered Shoes had started barking not long before Walter had crashed their ride.  Was it possible that Shoes could smell the sickness in people?  If he could, it was clear that he couldn’t smell it right away, only shortly before they turned, but that was still better than nothing.  Alec would now pay more attention to the dog and what it was doing.